Over the past few years I've found my tea preferences have shifted greatly. Once upon a time I preferred heavily flavored blends, but these days my tastes lean more towards unflavored green or oolong teas. If I want something a little different then I find myself reaching for some of the scented teas in my cupboard.

So what's the difference between a flavored tea and a scented tea?

Scented teas have flowers, herbs, or even fruit added during the drying or baking process that naturally infuse the tea with flavor, while flavored teas are generally achieved by adding some sort of additive—often an extract, chemical, or "natural" flavor. If you're looking to avoid additives of any type, then scented teas are a great choice and there are quite a few different varieties to choose from. Jasmine is one of the more popular choices, but I'm a huge fan of osmanthus oolong because of its subtle, sweet flavor and mild floral notes. It makes a wonderful iced tea that doesn't need extra sweetener (which is great for a sugar addict like me.)

Because I've come to enjoy scented teas so much I find myself seeking out unique and unfamiliar pairings, which is how I originally stumbled across the Ginger Lily Oolong that I'll be sharing with you today. What is interesting about this tea is that it doesn't actually contain ginger, but is instead scented with Ginger Lily, a type of tropical flower. Even more interesting is that it gives the tea a faint spicy flavor that isn't far off from real ginger. It pairs well with the more earthy high mountain oolong used as a base, but the overall flavor of the tea is very mild. This makes it a good choice for those of you who want to steer clear of the more floral oolongs and it's an excellent choice to serve along with a meal when you don't want the flavor of your tea to overpower the food.

Would I order this again? Yes. The flavor of this tea may be mild, but I love the light, refreshing hint of spice.

For the past few months I've been sticking to green tea, unless I'm doing my weekly post for Tuesday Tea, but I've finally reached the point where I need to break up the monotony. Fortunately I have a rather large stash of oolong I've been neglecting, including some wonderful scented oolongs that Tea Ave sent me earlier in the year. I really enjoyed the Osmanthus Oolong I sampled awhile back, so I couldn't wait to try their Rose Oolong.

I absolutely adore rose teas and always have, but I find that they're rather hit or miss. If there is too much rose the flavor becomes cloying, more like potpourri than tea. There are currently a few bags of rose tea scenting my hope chest because they're so overpowering I can't finishing drinking them (and I hate the idea of them going to waste.) If the rose flavor isn't strong enough I find myself getting bored with it easily, which can be a real problem if the base tea used is one that can be resteeped several times.

The texture of this tea was a real pleasure, Jin Xuan Oolong has a buttery mouthfeel, which was silky smooth, much like a rose petal. It was the perfect base for a rose oolong, but I found that the flavor was mild for a scented oolong— it had only the briefest hint of rose. I was hoping the rose was going to be more of a dominant flavor. By the third and fourth steepings of this tea there was hardly any sign of it, just a faint floral note in the background.

In an attempt to draw out more rose flavor from this tea I decided to cold-steep my second sample for 24hours. This batch of tea had the perfect balance of rose and oolong, but since this tea is $14.99CAD/$11.45USD (plus $15CAD shipping) for less than an ounce I don't recommend buying it with the intention of cold-steeping it (unless your rolling in dough, then in that case you and I need to become best friends ASAP.)

My Rating: 79/100

Would I order this again? Probably not. This tea was such a tease, it left me wanting more rose each time I took a sip.

Our Osmanthus Oolong is prepared using the ancient method, in which the tea absorbs the flower fragrance during the baking progress, producing a scented tea that’s aromatic and flavorful without using any additives or chemicals.

The osmanthus flower is a symbol of romance in Taiwanese culture, and Osmanthus Oolong is a traditional wedding tea in Taiwan. With a base of creamy Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong, Osmanthus Oolong is scented with the fragrant osmanthus flower, giving it a floral and fruity flavor. Light and bright, this tea is prized for its mellow, smooth qualities, with a subtle, lingering fruity aftertaste. Romantic indeed.

Steep Time: 2 minutes, resteep up to 4 times increasing time by 30 seconds each steeping

Review:

I owe you all an apology. I’ve been keeping something from you for months now and I shouldn’t have. I’ve been sitting on some wonderful oolong samples from Tea Ave, a new shop dealing in high quality oolongs. With my crazy travel schedule the past few months I couldn’t find the time to sit down and properly enjoy them, so I saved them for a quieter moment.

That quiet moment finally came last week when I had a lull in my travel schedule, so I’m excited to finally share the first of the samples they sent. One of the samples happened to be the osmanthus oolong I had been salivating over as I perused the various offerings on their website. Lucky me!

The first sip of tea sent me straight to heaven. It had a creamy mouthfeel and fruity flavor that reminded me of peaches covered with fresh cream. It was absolutely delicious and definitely the type of tea I find myself craving during the hot summer months.

As I steeped the tea a second, third, and even fourth time the flavor evolved from sweet and fruit flavored to mildly floral. It was almost as if I were drinking a different tea each time. With each cup I found something new to enjoy and couldn't wait to discover a new set of flavors in my cup. This was a truly excellent oolong.

My Rating: 90/100

Would I order this again? Yes. Some people think it's sacrilege to turn oolong into an iced tea, but I could see this becoming my favorite summertime tea since it has a naturally fruity flavor.

Disclosure:

In an effort to be open with my readers I want to let you know that this sample was provided to me free of charge by Tea Ave for my review. As always, all opinions are my own.